


A lorry load of hens went over on the by-pass

by daisynorbury



Series: Why God Created Beer [1]
Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Episode: s04e01 The Dead of Winter, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, references to canonical self-harm and child sexual abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 14:26:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6198598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisynorbury/pseuds/daisynorbury
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lewis and Hathaway talk at Crevecoeur after Mortmaigne's arrest. Continues the closing scene of Dead of Winter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A lorry load of hens went over on the by-pass

**Author's Note:**

> I remember the first time I fell for Robbie Lewis. It was 1990, and it was The Infernal Serpent. He said, “I gave my nippers one o’ them electronic keyboards”, and I was instantly and permanently hooked. Twenty-six years on, Kevin Whately still has the best smile on television.

It wasn’t even nine in the morning and DI Robert Lewis’s day had already barrelled right through difficult and smashed into horrifying.

_“I loved them.”_

Augustus Mortmaigne had spoken his awful confession quietly, but the words screeched around inside Lewis’ head like a car crash. He’d been a detective a long time and this particular tragic evil wasn’t new to him, but he never got used to it. He never would. People who hurt children and called it love. Wrecked their present and poisoned their future and thought it was love. 

_“That girl’s self-harming! Your protege? Does that not concern you?”  
“I’m old, Inspector, and all that matters to me is to see my daughter married, and by that, to ensure the future of Crevecoeur. As long as that happens, any truth you may unearth about us is of no concern to me whatsoever.”_

So that’d be a ‘no’, then. No remorse. The mind-bending selfishness of it. Solipsism. Sociopathy. He really didn’t care that a girl he claimed to love was- maybe still is- cutting herself up. How old was he when he forfeited his right to the word? How old was he when some other, older Marquis Tygon long ago…

Sod buried treasure, the Mortmaigne legacy is child abuse. Passed down from Bloody Richard himself maybe. Robbie’s heart ached for his daughter up north with her family, and his son so far away. His need to hold them close and safe never faded, he’d just learned to live with it. He very purposely had not asked whether his sergeant had been “special”. He didn’t want to remind Mortmaigne that Hathaway even existed. That was an altogether different kind of heartache. And there was no way he’d be telling James what the bastard had said about Briony and Paul Hopkiss.

* * *

The wedding tent stood empty. Strings of tiny lights bobbed and pulled at their moorings. Away to the right, low, early sun cast the long shadow of Crevecoeur tower across the green and into the wood beyond. A cold breeze whipped smoke from James’ mouth. The wound in his arm ached. He tossed the cigarette away as Lewis came up to stand beside him, and together they regarded the abandoned monument to decades of deceit and rapacity and pain.

“Gonna hand in my papers.” 

“Resign?”

“I compromised the investigation.”

“You made a mistake. You’re human.”

“Not good enough.”

“Why do you have to be better?”

_Why do I have to be_ *better* _? I don’t; I’d settle for basic competence. A mistake is buying the wrong jar of olives. A mistake is sending your uncle’s birthday card to his old address. Carrying on with a suspect and lying to you about it and cocking up the investigation is more than a mistake, and it’s becoming a pattern. Human. Too bloody right. If you only knew. I can barely believe I managed to do this again. You’d think, after Feardorcha- Zoe- I’d have learned. But Scarlett and I were kids together. She… I don’t get offers like that. “I’m marrying for money tomorrow; keep me company tonight?” isn’t something that happens to me. Hell, it didn’t even happen to me_ *this* _time: She admitted last night that it had sod-all to do with me. I’m just the copper she needed to distract from the robust family tradition of crime. Same way I was just was the convenient bloke down the hall who understood Fiona’s bollocks schedule. Same way I was just the bastard who drove Will to… No. Not my fault, despite what Zoe thought. But I hardly helped, did I? And here you are, making excuses for me. Why?_

“What happened here… you’re not to blame for any of it. Not then, not now. As for handing in your papers, well. If it’s all the same to you…” Lewis stopped and breathed. He tried again. “Between us, we make a not-bad detective. I’m the brains, obviously.”

“Obviously.” James glanced at him and grinned, then peered out over the green. He waited for another jab, but Lewis had gone quiet. He considered the notion of blame at Crevecoeur. Of dysfunction so pervasive it produced the deeply troubling piece of work that is Scarlett Mortmaigne. He realized that Augustus reminded him of one of those terrifying American cult leaders- the kind that marries all his adolescent daughters and then fifteen years down the line marries all _their_ daughters. Scarlett was as ensnared in her father’s web as anyone- probably more so- but that didn’t exonerate her. There’s always a choice. He very carefully and deliberately did not recall their night together. He’d never before been so thankful that his family had left this place. “I doubt I qualify as the brawn, though.”

“‘Course not. I’m the brawn, too. You’re the looks.” 

That startled a laugh out of him, but he smothered it. Lewis continued. “I know you don’t want to talk about it-”

“Correct.”

“And I won’t try to make you, I just... This, right after Zelinsky? You must be in hell. You don’t have to cope with this alone, James. I’m not saying you can’t, just that… I mean I know it’s not my business, but you’re so quiet about your family, and your life. I don’t know who you have to talk to. I want to make sure you know you’re not alone.”

James turned and regarded his inspector from behind his habitual impassive mask. _Am I not?_ “What, you?”

Lewis blinked, taken aback. “Me and everyone else who loves you. It’s okay to want help- or need it even if you don’t want it- or vice versa- and it’s okay to ask for it.” 

James raised an eyebrow.

Lewis set his jaw and looked away. “Yeah, well.” He sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. I should have been better. The last time you tried to open up.”

James looked at the ground, shaking his head. “No, you were justified. It was the same thing then. I hid my personal connection to a case and it bollixed the investigation.”

“‘Justified’ my ar- I’ve never been so irresponsible in my life and it nearly got you killed. Kenneth stuck a murder note _on your back_ and what did I do? Made it about myself. Stalked off instead of getting you somewhere safe. I should have stuck to you like a limpet after that. At the very least rung Innocent to tell her you were being targeted and then got you back to the station. That whole case was a bloody blunder, beginning to end.”

“I should have taken myself off it the moment I recognized Will.”

“I should have taken us _both_ off.”

“Sir, If I’d known Mortmaigne was abusing children I’d have removed myself from this one immediately but I never…” He turned away, gaze cast beyond the pavilion to the trees. “He didn’t. With me. Ever. And I didn’t know... But God, to think… At the time, I was _jealous_ of Paul. I mean, I disliked his weird servility- he was like that even as a kid- but he could be great fun, too. Very imaginative. He was usually the one who invented the games we all played together. And his parents were always so kind to me. I got on much better with them than I did my own. I’m half tempted to visit his mother in Guerns-” James choked suddenly. He squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose with his unbandaged hand. “And I’d never have known, if not for you.”

“Well. Can’t say I’m sorry, I’m afraid.”

“That’s not what I-”

“He can’t hurt any more kids now. It could just as easily have been you. Until a minute ago I thought it _had_ been.” James looked up sharply at that and drew in a breath to speak but Robbie cut him off. “And last night I nearly killed the bastard myself because I thought he’d hurt you. I was right to take you off this fiasco and I’d do it again, but I wouldn’t have had to if… Look. I won’t ask again what you were thinking. You have a history with her and even I can see how pretty she is. I just wish you wouldn’t do things to jeopardize our...” He cut off abruptly and made his exasperated face. The shadow of Crevecoeur Hall retreated slowly toward them. 

“I told you, I thought the case was already done. Grahame killed Black and then himself. Nothing to do with Scarlett or the Mortmaignes. No reason not to see her socially. I didn’t tell you about it because I knew you disagreed and would have ordered me not to see her.”

“Would you have invented a language class if you’d really thought there was no conflict of interest? You could have admitted to the date part. Why not just ‘No, it’s no one you know.’?”

 _Why indeed. I refer you to the paragraph above._ “Because I’d never have heard the end of it. At the time, we didn't know she was engaged. You’d’ve been so… relentlessly encouraging.” Unable to cross both arms before his chest, instead James reached behind himself with his free hand and massaged the back of his neck. “And it isn’t all the same to me, actually. Since you asked. I’d rather keep working with you than not.” 

Lewis didn’t respond. James expected some kind of acknowledgement, at least, but nothing. Silence. Wind billowed the tent, chilled their ears, pushed their hair around. Small birds made the sounds that small birds will on a sunny morning. James turned, opening his mouth to speak. The look on his inspector’s face stopped him. 

Robbie looked gutted. Ten years older, exhausted, and unutterably sad. Helpless. Hopeless. His face had crumpled into a hundred deep lines and he’d drawn his shoulders in around his neck. James would not have been surprised if he’d started crying. Instead, Lewis looked at the ground and said, quite low, “Not if you’d said. I'm capable of minding my own business.” 

“Sir, don’t- What? I said I want to _keep_ working with you.”

Lewis nodded, and in the time it took him to raise his head he’d schooled his features back to bland and his body language to calm, but James had seen. Robbie was hurt. James had hurt him.

“So do I, but I don’t expect you to spend another twenty years 'picking through other people’s misery’, as you put it.”

It seemed to James that the path of their conversation had slipped into a crevasse, and while Lewis had managed to climb back out the far side and keep going, James himself had got stuck. Robbie was hurt. James had hurt him. “Minding your own business?”

“Tell you what: If you agree to stay on, I promise I’ll keep my mouth shut about your love life.”

“I already- You don’t have to- “ No, still stuck. Robbie was hurt. _No._ James drew his eyebrows together rather hard. “I’m sorry, Sir. I didn’t mean I don’t appreciate your concern.”

“All right, lad, no harm done. This case just rattled me, that’s all. I’m not looking forward to writing the report but I’d rather do it now than have to revisit it later. If there’s anything you want to be sure I include you’re welcome to help, but you’re not obligated. I can handle this one.”

James blinked at him. That had not been the face of no harm done. “How long did Paul keep you at gunpoint?”

Lewis shrugged. “Don’t know. Hard to judge time in a situation like that.”

 _Christ. Not okay._ “I’ll help you write the report.”

The corners of Robbie’s mouth turned up just a bit. He bumped James’ shoulder with his own and said, “Right. Thanks. But maybe afterward you should take that leave you’re due, eh? Do you good.”

“Mm.” He nodded. “Maybe.”  
_No. On leave I’m alone and what-is-the-sodding-bloody-point. At work, you’re there._  
“Maybe you should, too.”


End file.
